Aselin

I stripped for six hours today. Seriously.

The mulberry harvest is on, and due to my genius idea to create an inverse skirt designed to catch the harvest as it falls, we have more mulberries collected on day two of the harvest than we did all season last year.

Persian mulberries are an interesting fruit. To eat them, or use them, one needs to remove them from the woody stem running down the middle. Since one of these mulberries is about the length of one of my fingers, stripping them from their stem is quite a process. Also, while they are quite tasty, they are not as aesthetically pleasing...

But catching the wily buggers is also a project.

Geometry was my best subject of all the math options, so I was in my element drawing the diagrams, sketches, calculating circumference, diameter and all sorts of mulberry skirt geekness. Usually I keep this sort of behavior confined to home, but imagine the looks I got as I, straight-faced, walked up to the cutting counter of my local fabric store and said " I would like 72 yards of this green tulle netting." Of course the clerk asks: "What for, my dear?" To which I answer, matter-of-factly: "To make a skirt for a tree." The cutter looked around hoping she could pawn me off on someone else, to no avail. There I stood, counting off yard after yard as I kept referring to my diagram - which I had displayed prominently at my side.

Carrying my bonanza to the check out counter, I paused only long enough to throw a mechanical plastic cow that pooped brown jelly beans, in the cart for my kids. I'm a giver if nothing else.


Starting the sewing part of my project, I soon found myself swallowed in enough green tulle that I felt like I was going to a giant leprechaun prom. Sewing 72 yards of tulle is totally disorienting. Multiple times I thought I was sewing the side, only to discover I was sewing the top, or the other side. Fortunately, botanical fashion is more forgiving than humanoid fashion. Even after strapping the thing on the tree, it never once asked me if it made it look fat. I will say, it takes a certain kind of confidence to carry off 72 yards of green tulle and this mulberry tree worked it!

So after hauling the giant bucket of mulberries to my kitchen, I settled in for the afternoon and began to strip. And strip. And strip. After an eon, I got through half of the bucket and have over 12 quarts of pulp. Stay tuned for the next few weeks of stripping. Then we'll move on to jamming.